Patna: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had a narrow escape after a crowd of around 300-400 people attacked his motorcade on Tuesday evening. Police have arrested six suspects while another 100 individuals have been named accused in the case.
Modi said he was going to attend a social function when the crowd attacked his motorcade at Chaksikandar village in Vaishali district last evening without any provocation. Some three cars in the convoy were partially damaged.
“The mob reached near my car and began thumping at its body while others in the crowd threw stones. In the meantime, the security personnel came rushing and took me to a safe place,” Modi told the media soon after the alleged attack.
He blamed the rival Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supporters behind the attack on his motorcade adding the RJD was angry after he exposed the benami properties of party chief Lalu Prasad and his family.
The RJD outright rejected the charges and said the incident could be the outcome of the people’s anger over BJP’s backdoor entry to power with support from Janata Dal United (JD-U) leader Nitish Kumar. The NDA which was given the mandate to sit in the opposition suddenly grabbed power in the state when Kumar formed government with the BJP after breaking 20-month-old alliance with the Grand Alliance last month.
“The general masses across the state are angry at the way Nitish Kumar ditched them and insulted the people’s mandate. The mandate was against the BJP but he formed government with the BJP. And, the incident could be the manifestation of pent-up people’s anger yet I condemn it if that has happened,” RJD chief Prasad said.
He denied the alleged involvement of RJD workers in the incident.
“But if they were found involved, we will expel them from the party,” he announced.
The RJD led by Lalu’s former deputy chief minister son Tejashwi Yadav is on a whirlwind tour of the state, in a campaign it says is meant to expose the “betrayal of people’s mandate” by Chief Minister Kumar and aimed at urging voters to join party’s rally in large number to ventilate their anger against the present regime.
The RJD is scheduled to hold its rally nicknamed “BJP Bhagao, Desh Bachao” (Dethrone BJP to save the country) on August 27 at Patna’s Gandhi maidan at which many top opposition leaders such Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, West Bengal CM Miss Mamata Banerjee and SP leaders Mulayam Singh Yadava and Akhilesh Yadav are expected to take part.
Prasad also alleged the incident could have been stage-managed by Modi to garner sympathy for himself in the light of surfacing of Rs900 crore (Rs90 billion) Bihar fund transfer scam in which the latter, he alleged, is directly involved.
“Such drama will not help him much, he ultimately will have to go to jail,” Prasad said. He described the incident as a complete “breakdown of law and order situation” in the state and wondered what the security personnel following him were doing when the mob attacked Modi’s motorcade.